The Clichéd Challenge
by Invisiblegirl3
Summary: It s always the same plot line, isn t it? The girls make a bet, the main girl ends up with the boy she s hated forever, and she ends up falling for him. Yeah, I don t think so. Not here, anyway. Disclaimer: Since the wishing well didn t work, I don t own anything in this that you recignise from the Harry Potter books. Pre-Black Files, post Heartless Affections.
1. The Bet

**The Bet**

"So. Bored." Lily said, staring up at the ceiling.

Melody perked up. "I have an idea to make things more interesting."

"Yeah? What is it?!" Mattie asked, rolling over.

"It`s a bet of sorts."

"How many people?" asked Mary.

"All of us." Melody said, gesturing around the dorm.

"Cool. Soo…"

"Okay, each of us has to seduce-at least kiss, that is- one of the Marauders by the end of the week. We`ll draw for who gets who."

"What happens if we`re not successful?" Mary asked, looking concerned.

"The group should have to decide the punishment depending on the person." said Mattie.

Melody nodded in approval and turned to the group. "Who`s in?"

Mary was the first to answer, her voice quieter than usual, and she was suddenly acting shy. "Okay."

"Not me. Somehow I don`t think my boyfriend would be thrilled if I did bets like this while we`re dating. He might be in Hufflepuff, but he`s not stupid." Alice said.

"I`ll do it." Lily said.

"Why not." Mattie finally sighed.

"Great, that`s four, perfect! Alright people, let's do this." Melody said, plucking a purse off the floor, emptying the contents on her bed, and putting four little slips of paper inside, one with the name of each boy. She rolled over to get her wand of the nightstand, and then levitated the purse over to Mary (Wizard laziness), who didn`t seem too happy about having the first pick.

Everyone in the dorm room, even Alice, who was pretending to write a letter, stared, holding their breath in anticipation, as Mary reached her hand into the purse and retrieved a slip of paper.

Mary read it aloud softly. "Peter."

A loud collective sigh let out from the other girls. It wasn`t that they had anything against Peter; it was just a relief not to be left hanging any longer.

Mary levitated the purse back to Melody, who quickly grabbed the first paper she touched impulsively. When she read the name, Melody laughed loudly.

"Who`d you get, Mel?" Mattie asked anxiously.

"Too easy." She said happily. "I got Black." She turned her paper around.

The purse went to Lily next. James and Remus were left. With her luck, she`d end up with that pompous prick. It was almost inevitable, Lily thought as she fished her hand around, so predictable that fate would be so cruel as to pin her with James.

She unfolded her paper, already imagining how she would trick him into-

Lily dropped the paper in shock as she read the name on the parchment.

"What? Who was it?!" Alice asked excitedly, leaning over to try and read the slip.

Lily mumbled her reply.

"Louder, Lils." Mary said, her voice more confident than it had been before.

"Remus." Lily said again, faintly, but everyone heard her this time.

Lily couldn`t believe this. Was she really disappointed? James was an ignorant, pompous, rude, belligerent, snobbish, spoiled, brat. Why did it matter, then, that she got Remus? It should have felt like a miracle. Instead, Lily just sat there feeling and looking like she`d just been pushed down an elevator shaft and free-fallen ten stories.

"So I`ve got James." Mattie said, and Lily could tell that she wasn`t thrilled with this arrangement either. Mattie and James were like long-lost siblings (How she could stand him, Lily hadn`t a clue), Lily knew, and that would make Mattie`s completion of the bet all the much harder.

"Alright, so we`ve got a week to complete this starting tomorrow, and any failures will be given a punishment assigned by the other people in the group."

Lily barely heard Melody, and completely missed Mary, Mattie, and Melody walking out of the room while scheming, due to the fact that she`d gone into total panic mode.

A week. Seven days. 168 hours. Could she pull this off?

No, that wasn`t the question, Remus would be relatively easy.

Would she?

Now, that was a good question.

Why not? Lily tried to reason with herself, but her brain, one of the best in the entire school, was completely not cooperating, which was a first.

There was only one factor that would prevent Lily from being able to go through with it that Lily`s super smart brain found entirely possible. But Lily wouldn`t except it. No. NO. It just wasn`t true.

Did she…

Despite everything? Lily tried to focus on all of his bad aspects, but suddenly all of the cute, valiant, kind things flooded towards her. Him helping the first year boy by giving him a water-repelling charm so he could walk to his outside class in the rain without getting soaked. How he was protective and loyal to his friends.

Lily didn`t want to allow herself to think it, as if ignoring it would make it go away.

It didn`t work. The seed had been planted.

…_Like James Potter?_

It was a very good question.

* * *

When Lily finally went down to the common room, she joined the rest of her friends on the couches around the fire.

"You should just go for a direct approach, otherwise you`ll think too much and chicken out. Walk up tomorrow and get it over with." Mattie was telling Mary.

"Don`t you think they`ll get suspicious when you all kiss them within the week?" Alice asked.

Melody frowned. "I didn`t think of that…"

"Really?" Mary said sarcastically.

"If worse comes to worst, we can all just pretend that we were all under the effect of some sort of potion or spell." Mattie laughed.

Lily was about to tell them about the strange phenomena she`d experienced earlier when she realized that she may quite possibly like (maybe even something worst that she wouldn`t even think of in this context) James, when, as if on cue, all four Marauders strutted in.

Normally, Lily would have rolled her eyes, but now, she just tried as hard as possible to ignore them as the plopped down in the chairs nearby. James couldn`t find a chair, so he sat on the arm of the couch Mary, Lily, and Alice were sitting on. Sandwiched between her friends, Lily didn`t allow herself to think about the boy sitting next to Alice, and instead focused on who she was supposed to (somehow)

"Hey Remus?" Lily said, tearing him away from some conversation he was having with Peter and James.

"Hmm?"

Lily acted natural, which came easily, partially because she didn`t think of Remus as anything more than a friend. "Would you mind helping me study for that charms test we`ve got on Tuesday?"

She silently begged he would say that he was busy all week.

"Sure." He said, smiling friendlily. "Are you free tomorrow night?"

"Yeah, that would be perfect." Lily said, flashing him a smile.

Which it would have been, if she hadn`t accidently glanced over at James and saw him smiling at her in a way that made her head spin and her heart (Which was still not listening to her brain) skip a beat.


	2. Day One

**Day One**

The day began routinely.

Lily woke up before everyone else to get a shower in before the rush of girls awoke and descended on the bathrooms, got dressed, loaded up her bag with the books and papers for her first five classes, threw books at her roommates to get them up so they wouldn`t miss breakfast, waited for them to get up and rush around the room getting ready, and then slouched downstairs to breakfast, still half asleep.

"Pass the juice." Mary said, blinking the clouds of sleep from her eyes.

"Do we have a test in Transfiguration or Herbology today?" Marline, who lived in the dorm room next to the girl`s, slid down the bench and asked.

"Herbology?" Lily said, looking to Mary for reference, who nodded. "Herbology."

Marline`s eyes went wide, and she darted out of the hall in a frenzied panic.

Mary said, "I hope she`s got enough time before class to cram."

"Pass the juice." Lily said.

"Alice." Mattie whispered, nudging Alice, who was sleeping with her head down on her arms, which were around the juice pitcher. "Sorry, but we need the juice."

"Mhhph." Alice grunted, moving her head slightly.

Mattie took this as permission to take the juice and pass it to Mary.

"Speaking of things which some people are passing on," Melody said quietly, glancing at Alice, "Is anyone excited about the bet starting today?"

Lily gagged on her freshly-poured pumpkin juice and spewed it all over Mattie.

"Oh, I`m so sorry!" Lily gasped. The pumpkin juice had completely shot over Mattie, drizzling all over her face, hair, and clothes. She`d put her arms out in front of her in protection, but that hadn`t even stopped half of it. Lily grabbed some napkins to help mop the mess up.

"It`s okay." Mattie squinted and wiped the cold, dripping liquid off her eyelids and eyebrows. Everyone at their table was staring at her and Lily, and even some of the students at neighboring tables had turned to look. Mattie stood up and started to walk out of the hall.

"Hey Pumpkin, where ya goin`?" James called out, and heckling laughter broke out.

Smiling, Mattie marched back over to the table, across from where he was sitting, leaned across the table, and shook her wet hair in his face like a dog who`d just come in from the rain, causing the hall to roar in laughter.

He and the other Marauders got pumpkin juice freckled across them. Satisfied, she strode out.

"So, I`m guessing you forgot then?" Alice, who`d sat up to watch the spectacle, asked.

Lily`s good mood descended. "I just hadn`t thought about it since last night." She sighed.

Mary rolled her eyes. "Come on, you got an easy one. Plus, you`ve already pretty much won because you two are studying later on tonight and-"

"Yeah, but _Remus_. He`s like…Remus. And my friend." She whispered.

"So? You don`t have to like it." Alice said. "It won`t kill you. Besides, Mattie`s got James, and they act like siblings."

"Good point." Lily said.

"I`ll see you guys later." Melody said, getting up, "I`m gonna go get a pass from McGonagall so Mattie won`t get in trouble if she comes into class late from after getting the pumpkin juice off her."

Lily nodded, but her mind was elsewhere.

* * *

"… you don`t have to worry about failing now. See, studying actually works!" Remus said as he and Peter got up from their table.

"I still think it would have been easier just to give Slughorn the chocolate like Prongs and Sirius said." Grumbled Peter.

Remus shoved his friend into a bookshelf. Two books flew off the other side, hitting Mary, who was ducking down unseen by the boys, on top of her head.

She reflexively gasped in pain.

"Prongs would do anything to stay out of the library. At least you`re guaranteed a good grade this way."

The boy`s footsteps grew softer, and Mary picked up the books and put them back on the shelf, cursing herself for being an idiot and almost getting caught. She quietly left the library, ignoring the sharp pain in her head which was probably already forming a bruise.

"I hate this already." She informed Matilda when she reached the common room.

"Hmm? What do you hate, exactly? Mondays? Free periods? If it`s the latter, I disagree."

As Mattie set down her book, Mary lowered her voice. "The bet. I just got a bump on my head from trying to spy on Remus and Peter in the library. It was a stupid idea anyway. I don`t even know what I was listening for." She flopped down in a chair.

"Ooh, did you get any ice for your head."

"Nah, it doesn`t hurt that much. Mostly it`s just my pride. Today sucks so far."

"It hasn`t really been that bad. Why, did something else happen?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "Some Slytherins jeered at me in the hall because of my blood status, Liam Johnson asked me out in charms again today and he got mad when I turned him down again, and my bag exploded in the hallway. So yeah, fun times."

"Oh, Mar…"

"I`m just not feeling very fierce today, and I feel like I`ve been acting like a Hufflepuff ever since I agreed to this bet."

"You just need to Gryffindor it up. You know, I`ve been thinking… I`ve only had three detentions this year. Maybe it`s time to make that a nice even number. Let`s go get Mel and then go downstairs and take this bad day out on some of our sworn enemies."

"We have sworn enemies?"

"Of course we have sworn enemies. We`re Gryffindors for Merlin`s sake. Let`s go."

* * *

"Silencio!" Lily said, waving her wand at the frog she and Remus were using for practice.

The frog made an odd noise, not quite a croak, and hopped around in its box.

"Ugh. I just can`t get it." She said, leaning back against the bed behind her. It was too messy to be Remus`, Lily guessed. His was probably the one in the corner, the only one that`s bed sheets wasn`t wrinkled.

Remus smiled. "You have to jab your wand, not wave it. Like this…" He said, and demonstrated with a quick flick.

"Silencio!" Lily tried again, jabbing her wand at the frog.

It croaked no more.

"Brilliant!" Remus said, adjusting his glasses.

Lily undid the silencing charm. "Do you want to try now?"

"Sure." He said. "Silencio!"

He got it on his first try.

"How do you do that so well?!" Lily said, leaning against his shoulder.

Remus shrugged. "Practice…Perfectionism…Natural born talent… but mostly it`s magic!" He said, doing sarcastic jazz hands for emphasis.

They laughed, and Lily rested her head against the bed, looking up at him. Their faces were five centimeters apart, noses almost touching. Remus looked into her eyes and smiled, and Lily couldn`t help beaming back. Lily started to gravitate towards him, and closed her eyes.

Lily would be the winner, the first one to complete the challenge, she knew, as soon as her lips touched his. She was seconds away from victory, so close she could almost feel it, like how she could feel the unmistakable twang of emotions that were increasingly unhelpful at this exact moment, and why wouldn`t her stupid brain just shut up…

"Nope!" Lily said, her eyes shooting open as she pulled back at the last minute.

Remus sat up and awkwardly coughed. "Sorry."

"Not your fault. Totally not your fault." We looked straight ahead at the wall with the Quidditch posters, not touching.

"I believe that was partially my fault."

"I spiked your drink at dinner. Judgment impairment, not straight thinking. Not your fault." Lily admitted.

Remus closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. "That would explain a few things. May I ask why?"

"Only if you bring it to your grave."

"That bad?"

"And you have to swear never to speak of what almost happened again, not even when we`re old and sitting at the retirement home by the fire in our rocking chairs, reminiscing of the old days."

"Alright, I swear."

"Bet."

"Thought so. Details?"

"Promise you won`t tell?"

"I already swore!"

"Do you wanna know or not?"

"Fine, I promise I won`t tell anyone."

"Well, I kinda had to kiss you to win this contest-"

"Marline`s idea?"

"Nope."

"Bell`s?"

"Closer."

"Mel`s?"

"Bingo. Anyway, it`s nothing personal, but I just don`t really think of you in that way and I think I like someone else anyway,-"

"You think?"

"Has anyone ever told you that that it`s rude to interrupt people?"

"Sorry. Go on."

"So this doesn`t mean anything. Have a nice night." Lily stood up and collected her things.

"HOLD IT." Remus said, pulling her back down (he is surprisingly strong for his size). "I have questions, and you owe me answers."

"I don`t owe you anything."

"You drugged me."

"Fair enough. Shoot."

Remus polished his glasses on his shirt. "Who is in on this bet?"

"Top secret. Next question."

"Who do you like?"

"Confidential. Next question."

"Who are the other victims in this bet?"

"Access denied. Next."

"Are you even going to answer one of my-"

"Oh, and it looks like that`s all the time we have today, folks. Tune in next week when-" Lily stood up and started to walk out.

"Lils, wait." He said, jumping up and grabbing her arm before she sprinted out the door. "Just answer me one thing. For real."

"Fine." She said, brushing back stray hair.

"Is it James?" He asked.

Lily`s expression stayed the same, but Remus noticed two pink patches on her pale cheeks that were not there before.

"Yes." She whispered, and pulled away to dart down the stairs.

"I knew it!" he called after her.

Alone in his dorm, Remus Lupin did a small victory dance (more of a jig, really).

"I knew it." He whispered to himself. The Quidditch player on the wall shook his head.


	3. Crazy Juice

**Crazy Juice**

**Or**

**Day Three, Part One**

This bet was the best entertainment Hogwarts had seen in months. Alice couldn`t remember a more interesting week since the Marauders had put niffers down the chimneys in third year.

As the unofficial ref of the bet and also the only roommate not in the competition, Alice was being kept up to date constantly by her friends.

Nobody had managed to finish yet, and the girls were all too aware of the looming deadline. Mary`s tactic was to stay close to Peter during the day and hope for an opportunity to present itself, while Melody`s plan, which she insisted she had but wouldn`t spill any details, seemed to involve a lot of procrastination. Mattie, on the other hand, kept uncharacteristically inconclusive on her strategy. She`d told Alice not to tell the other girls, but she wasn`t sure she was going to be able to be able to win unless she could get him to drink a polyjuice potion, and even then she wasn`t sure if it would make it feel less like kissing a brother. She hadn`t given up yet, but Lily had. Lily told Alice all about when she`d studied with Remus on Monday, and apparently the ordeal had convinced her that it was best just to throw in the towel.

Unfortunately, Alice had been sworn to secrecy, which meant telling Ryan was out of the question. She knew he`d love this, but she wasn`t going to break her promise to her friends.

It was temping though. As Alice walked hand in hand with him on their way to Divination, shoulders brushing, they passed Mary, who was picking herself up after tripping yet again while watching Peter.

"Bloody bet." She muttered to Alice as she caught up with them. "I swear, this thing`s gonna be the death of me."

"What is?" Ryan asked.

"Her bag. The straps are faulty." Alice covered calmly. "It`s been bothering her all week."

"That`s right, it has! I`m Mary bloody McDonald, why haven`t I taken care of this already? Alice, why haven`t I taken care of this already?! I`m taking care of this right now! This is ridiculous! I`ve got a life! I can`t be bothered to continue on like this." Mary stormed up ahead.

"OI!" She yelled at Peter`s back. "PETTIGREW!"

Peter (and everyone else in the hall) turned, bewildered.

Mary marched up and quickly kissed him. "This means nothing, just to let you know."

She stormed off as swiftly as she`d come.

Peter turned to James and Lupin, who were stunned as well, and said in a very clam and Dumbledorish manor, "I could do for some raspberry jam right about now."

The boys broke out in peals of laughter and walked on as if nothing had happened.

Ryan raised his eyebrows, and Alice shrugged.

"Don`t ask. I think someone put a crazy potion in some of my housemates` pumpkin juice."

* * *

"Where`s Mar, Mel, and Mattie?" Alice asked.

"Detention." Remarked Lily.

Alice nodded thoughtfully. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that stunt they pulled. I`m surprised McGonagall only gave them a detention two days after for that. I heard Mulciber still hasn`t been to a class since."

"It was bloody brilliant though, you have to admit that. Anyway, speaking of crazy stunts, I heard Mary`s already finished the bet."

"Now_ that _was bloody brilliant! You should have seen her. She scared the sweet Merlin out of poor Ryan!"

The girls climbed the stairs to the pace of the bucketing rain visible through the windows. Through the masses of students, Remus emerged to join them.

"Hey, you guys going to the Quidditch match on Saturday?"

"Remy, of course we`re going! Have we ever missed one?" Alice cheerfully replied.

Lily glanced over. "What about the one in second year?"

"Not the point. By the way, do you wanna study with Lil and me in the library tonight? Mel, Mar, and Mattie have got detention till half seven."

"Alright. What time?"

"How about we meet in the library after dinner?" Lily suggested.

"Sounds good."

"What are they doing for their detention that`s taking so long?"

"They`re helping Filch clean and organize all of the broom cupboards and storage areas, without magic."

* * *

"Um, guys? Ah, I sorta need help over here..."

"Give us a minute Mar, we`re kinda busy at the moment."

Melody, feather duster in hand, was precariously perched on Mattie`s shoulders as to reach the top shelf of the cupboard. A few feet away, Mary was on her hands and knees, still as a statue except for her eyes, which danced around feverishly scanning the junk.

"Where`d it go? Oh Agrippa, where is it?!" Mary whispered nervously.

"Where`s what?" Mel inquired.

"There`s a-a-a-"

"A what?"

"R-r-r-r-a-a-"

"Radio? Raven? Raft? Rabbit?"

"a-a-a-"

"Rapscallion?"

"Mel, let her talk…" Mattie said.

"There it is!" Shrieked Mary, causing Mattie to jump back from the shelf evidently containing the danger, which made Melody loose her balance and tumble off her friend`s shoulder`s.

Since Filch had taken their wands, the girls were unable to magically catch her. Right before Melody hit the ground, Mattie dove to try and catch her, but unfortunately she`d dove too late. Melody crashed to the hard floor, and her feather duster conked Mary on the head.

"Mel! Oh, Merlin, are you alright?!" Mattie gasped.

"Mats, quick! Get it!" Mary squealed, pointing at a large black rat sitting on one of the lower shelves. Mattie quickly trapped it under a bucket.

"That`s what it was? Really Mar?" Mattie asked, raising an eyebrow quizzically before rushing to Melody`s aid.

"Can you move?"

"I think s- Op, ah, no no nope." Melody winced.

"Merlin, this isn`t good." Mattie gasped. "FILCH!"

"I`m sorry." Mary whispered as Mattie bolted down the corridor in search of Filch.

"FILCH! FILCHY! HEY! MEL`S HURT! WHERE ARE YOU?" Mattie belted down the hall.

"It`s okay. It`s not your fault you`re afraid of rats." Melody replied kindly, biting her lip to distract herself from the fiery pain emitting from her leg.

"OI! ANYBODY GOT A WAND AROUND HERE? I NEED SOMEONE TO LEVITATE MY FRIEND TO THE HOSPITAL WING!"

Mary tried to help Melody straiten her leg, and Melody winced in pain. "Are you okay?"

"IS THERE A TEACHER ABOUT? FILCH!"

"You know, I think I might have broken something…." Melody said matter-of-factly.

"FILCH? WHERE IS EVERYBODY?!"

"This isn`t good at all…"

Mattie appeared at Melody`s side again, along with Filch and Professor Kettleburn. "Step aside, girls."

"Can you walk?" the professor asked.

"No, I think my leg is broken."

Professor Kettleburn levitated Melody and navigated her out of the cupboard. "Ms. McDonald and Ms. Bell, please step back!"

Filch begrudgingly handed the two remaining girls the wands back as Kettleburn escorted Melody to the hospital wing. "You may go back to your dorms now."

"You may think that she`s going without us, but you`d be wrong." Mattie insisted, and the girls sprinted after their friend.

When they caught up to Kettleburn and Melody, the professor looked at them as if he was going to tell them they couldn`t come, but then thought better of it.

* * *

After the last of the food vanished from everyone`s dinner plates, Remus headed to the library. Lily was already there, waiting at one of the tables in the back.

"Alice might be coming later, but she wanted to bring some food up to Mel, Mattie, and Mar in the hospital wing."

Remus nodded sympathetically. "It`s good Filch let the detention go after Mel had to go get her bones mended."

Lily flipped open one of the heavy books before them, and a cloud of dust arose, making the pair cough.

* * *

"Melly! We come bearing food!" Sirius announced, gallivanting into the hospital wing with James, Alice, and Peter.

Madam Pomfrey rushed out and tried to usher the crowd away. "Only six visitors allowed at a time!"

"It`s okay, I was just going to be going anyway." Melody explained brightly.

"Well….I suppose, since you are healed. Take it easy for a few days, though."

"Okay. Thanks for everything!" Melody slid off the bed and she and Mary and Mattie joined the newcomers.

"You`re welcome." James said as he and the others piled the food into the girl`s arms.

"It was my idea. I just recruited these fools to help me get the food from the kitchens." Alice smirked.

James jokingly threw a roll at Alice, who caught it easily and passed it off to Mary. "You`re welcome anyway."

"Hey, I was supposed to meet Remus and Lils in the Library. Do you guys want to come? Mel can fill us in on the details of the accident."

"Sounds fine by me."

"I`m cool with it."

"Let`s go."

* * *

Lily looked up from Remus` essay she was editing. She could hear faint but recognizable voices.

"…So I punched him…"

"…If you actually…"

"..secret passage that leads…"

It was hard to understand all what the voices were saying, but it was pretty clear the speakers were Gryffindor from what she could hear.

She couldn`t distinguish the other voices, but she knew two for sure. Alice, Mary, and a few others were in the library, probably looking for them.

Lily had given some thought to her decision of giving up on the bet. Everything about giving up was a good idea, except for the fact that she`d have to complete a punishment. Knowing her friends, the punishments were going to be a lot worse than kissing Remus Lupin.

It was then that Lily found herself standing in a metaphorical doorway of opportunity.

* * *

"Ew, it`s so…bookish." Sirius said.

James shivered. "It`s a constant reminder of …"

"…learning." Mattie finished for him.

James looked to his best mate. "The last time I was in here, I encountered an evil book spirit. He tried to teach me things, so I punched him."

"Really Potter, if you actually read a book every once in a while, you might know that there`s no such things as 'book spirits'." Mary laughed.

"If you can stand the knowledgy bits…."

"I heard a rumor that there`s a secret passage in here that leads to the kitchens. Have you guys found that yet?" Alice asked the boys.

"Are you serious?" Sirius, who had never thought to check the library for hidden tunnels, yelled, causing the librarian and several students to look over and hush them.

Alice struggled to keep a straight face. "Siriusly Black."

"Whoa, that`s mad awesome! Prongsy, we are so gonna find it!"

* * *

The voices drew closer.

"But I don`t see why you would need to include those last few dates in there. The goblin recruitment numbers would make more sense, to show the impact. Ya know?" Remus said, scanning the page.

Lily`s nerves were going crazy, her brain frantically trying to choose which fate was worse.

But really, there was only one option.

"If you moved things around a bit, the paragraph structure would flow more and sound less robotic."

She saw movement in the reflection on the window. There was seconds left until they would turn the corner.

Her hand tremored slightly, but Remus didn`t notice.

"See what I mean?"

The figures appeared on the surface of the polished table.

"Lily?"

He glanced up.

Lily grabbed his necktie and pulled him to her in one swift motion, crashing her lips to his, her free hand tangling in his hair.


	4. The Alice Prediciment

**The Alice Predicament**

**Or**

**Day Three part two**

The group stopped short.

James` eyes widened and a thousand thoughts hammered through his head.

Lily`s arms were wrapped around Remus, and they were snogging with no apparent plans of stopping, seemingly oblivious to the people watching.

Fortunately, James` many years of rejection from Lily had taught him to not let his face show emotion in the face of heartbreak. His arms tightened slightly, but besides that James Potter`s expression did not betray him, unlike the Marauder who was snogging the only girl who James had thought he`d made off-limits to his mates was.

Torture. He couldn`t tear his eyes away.

Peter, jaw dropped, was glancing between James and what was visible of Remus.

The girls gave each other knowing glances, only mildly surprised.

Sirius just started at James, studying his reaction.

* * *

Lily could feel their eyes on her back, and she prayed they couldn`t see her blushing as red as her hair. She didn`t dare open her eyes, not even for a second. Remus struggled after he got over the initial shock, but Lily stepped on his foot to make him stop resisting. Too embarrassed to stop and face the crowd behind her, she didn`t stop.

After several long seconds, she finally heard them walk away.

She opened her eyes to a very angry Remus.

"Lily Evans, what did you bloody do that for?!"

Lily started calmly gathering her things. "Um, I thought I already told you about the bet."

"You said you weren`t going to do it!"

"I realized I didn`t want to have to do a punishment because after the Mulciber thing I remembered that Mel and Mattie are evil genius`."

"What about James? Whatever happened to him?"

Lily couldn`t control the blush that was slowly creeping onto her face. She lowered her voice. "What about James? I didn`t tell him… and this doesn`t mean anything anyway, it`s just a bet and you know that."

"You didn`t…" Remus` eyes clouded. "You couldn`t see who.…"

"What?!"

"Ah, I can`t believe- Lils, James just saw that. I don`t know who _you _think just saw us, and I didn`t see everyone thanks to you, but when I looked up James was glaring daggers at me."

"Re-"

"You just made me the worst best friend ever, you know that?" He hissed. "He liked you too, and you just ruined everything. For a bet. Is it worth it, Evans? If I didn`t know better, I`d think you like breaking his heart."

"I-"

"YOU didn`t see the look on his face."

"Rem-"

"Poor Prongs. Poor, loyal Prongs." Remus muttered while he slammed his things into a neat pile before storming out, leaving Lily broken, conflicted, and alone.

* * *

"Moony-"

"Not now, mate-" Remus tore up the steps to the boy`s dorm.

"Moony…"

His feet barely touched the steps, as if they were made of lava.

"Moony…"

_ ._

The door wouldn`t budge. Remus pounded on the door. "PRONGS! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!"

"Moony!" Peter pulled his friend away from the door. They both knew the wooden barrier, even strengthened by magic, stood no chance to a werewolf several days before a full moon.

"Wormtail, help me."

"Prongs doesn`t-"

"Prongs, doesn`t understand. I don`t- Lily and I- It`s not like that." Remus said loudly, knowing the other two Marauders could hear.

"It looked pretty like that in the library." Peter said bluntly.

"Wormy, please. I swear, it`s nothing like that. I need to talk to him."

Peter understood the look in his friend`s eyes. He whispered a password that Remus couldn`t hear, and the door swung open.

James sat on his bed, made of steel.

"I can explain."

"I bloody hope so."

* * *

"I heard about your friend. Harper was in the library when it happened." Ryan kissed his girlfriend`s forehead comfortingly. "The Gryffindors have really gone wild recently."

"It was a bet."

"It sure didn`t look that way."

"Lily`s my friend. Please don`t talk about her that way. She was just acting on a dare."

"I thought you said it was a bet."

"Ryan…"

"I`m sorry. It`s just a little hard with the inconsistencies."

"Not helping."

"Sorry. Do I need to worry about you running off on one of these crazy dares?"

"Can we stop talking about this?"

"I`d be happy to, after you answer my question."

"Do you really think I would do that to you?"

"All your friends are doing it. First Mary, now Lily."

"They`re both single! Do you not trust me at all?" Alice shrugged his arm off her shoulder.

"Alright, I trust you. We don`t need to go that far. I know you`d never do that, Ally."

"Thank you."

"Are your other roommates in on this dare as well?"

"It`s a bet."

"So that`s a yes then? I can`t wait to see who the other two attack."

Alice sighed and brushed away from him.

"What? Too much?"

"They`re my _friends, _Ryan. You need to stop."

"I`m sorry, babe."

"You keep saying that, but I don`t think you are!" Alice shouted, spinning on him. "Sometimes…." She let out an angry breath.

"Ally, I know your friends mean a lot to you…"

"Evidently you don`t if you thought it was okay to talk about them like that! Ryan, I`m done, okay? I can`t do this anymore."

"Don`t be like that, Al."

"You can`t bash them and expect me to be okay with that. Goodbye."

* * *

"I deserved it."

Alice didn`t look up from her essay. It was true, but she was too nice to acknowledge it.

Melody, ever the optimist, said kindly, "On the upside, at least Remus was able to explain it to James without telling him about the bet. I heard James actually forgave him."

There was several beats of silence before Mary quietly spoke.

"At least you completed the bet."

Lily stared up at the ceiling and remembered what Remus had said in the library. "It wasn`t worth it."

Nobody was looking at anyone else in the room, and everyone was on their respected beds, except for Mattie, who was on Melody`s bed braiding her wet hair.

"It would probably be best to call of the bet."

It could have been any one of the participants that said it, but none of the others agreed, disagreed, or reacted. The statement hung in the air like an ill-wishing storm cloud.

"Don`t." Alice finally stated.

The others gave her melancholily quizzical glances.

"If you end it now, Lily would have Snape`d everything up for nothing. The week is almost over anyway, you might as well see this thing through to the end."

"You`re right. There is only a few days left anyway."

Lily caught Alice staring off into space. "Are you okay?"

"Are you?"

* * *

Thinking required food, so James Potter was heading to the kitchens alone to think.

Twice he passed whispering underclassmen on the stairs, but he was not the object of their chatter, so they blessedly left the Quidditch star alone for once.

But thanks to the underclassmen, he didn`t need the map to tell him who was running after him down the stairs.

"James, please hold up a moment."

He quickened his pace, practically sprinting towards the painting of the pear.

"Please, James, I need to talk to you…"

James froze, but not of his own accord. Lily quickly caught up and freed him.

"I`m really-"

"Evans, you cannot understand the magnitude of exactly how much I don`t want to talk to you right now." James said, sending her a withering glance.

"I didn`t-"

James closed his eyes and cut her off, hissing, "Stop. Just stop. I`m not going to have this stupid talk with you. You can either go away now, or I will transfigure you into a rock and throw you into the lake."

Only after he had heard the distinct clicks of her feet on the stone floor as she walked away did he finally open his eyes and tickle the pear.

* * *

Alice thought the dorm was empty until she heard the hushed whispers emanating from the far corner of the room.

"I know it`s still on but…" one voice was saying.

"I know what you mean. I really didn`t want to win with James anyway, and now I'm just flat out not going to do it. I mean honestly, besides the whole it`s James factor, hasn`t he been through enough recently with the whole bit with Remy and Lils? At this point it wouldn`t just be awkward, it`d be dumb and insensitive."

"And with…"

"No, you should at least finish it. Don`t let me stop you. He`s just a guy."

"Matts…"

"Mels…"

Alice dove onto the bed behind the two, landing with a thump that made them jump.

"Maybe I could help."

* * *

Mattie broke out into a smile when Alice finished. "That`s bloody brilliant. Did you just come up with that now?"

"Yeah, thanks. So what do you say, Mel? Can I solve your problem?" Alice smiled.

"Please do. I know the bet was my idea in the first place, but I really didn't want anyone to get hurt, and above all I don`t want to hurt another friend. I`m totally fine with this as long as Mats is sure…"

Mattie sighed. "I`m seri- not joking, it`s alright. I`m fine. By the way Alice, I`m sorry about Ryan. Why didn`t you say something sooner?"

"It wasn`t important, I didn`t want to add to Lily`s worries. Please don`t tell her before I do."

The tow replied in unison, unintentionally. "We won`t."

"Good luck." Mattie murmured.

"Thanks. You`re sure-"

"Yes. It`s better this way."

Melody and Mattie started talking about the weekend`s Quidditch match (Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw, it was going to be a close game), but Alice had three days of preparations to catch up on, so she didn`t have time to chat. Resolving to tell Lily about Ryan in the morning, she set off to inform the other two bet participants about the slight fluctuation.

Due to personal reasons, Mel was out. And in her place, Alice was in, all in.

**A/N: Thank you commenter Jimmielee for your hilariously worded comment on my last chapter. It really made my day (And thanks to everyone else who has commented on my stories, you guys are the best and I really appreciate it).**


	5. Day Four, And A Duel

**A/N: If lots of words in all caps bother you...I`m sorry. This is the official warning. You might want to have someone read this out loud to you or something, because there is quite a bit of that...yeah. Sorry.**

**Day Four, And A Duel**

Thursday morning, when the sun shone upon Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, all was not the same as it had been the night before.

Sure, there were more rows and plots afoot than there had been when the sun had departed, but there was something that almost blew everything else away.

Some_one_, actually.

"What did you do?" Lily Evans shrieked, making every slumbering student within fifty feet of her jump from their beds.

"Lily? What`s wrong?" Melody said, suddenly wide awake, clutching her wand.

Marlene and some other Gryffindor girls burst in, their wands also at the ready to fend off the offender. "Did somebody break in?"

"What`s going on?"

"Where`s my sock?"

"Are you alright?"

Lily snapped out of her stoic, horrified trance. "Alice….What did you do to your hair?!"

Mattie rolled her eyes. "Really? That`s what you woke us up for? Alice`s hair? Ug, I should file for a new roommate."

"Sorry girls, show`s over. Lily`s sorry she shouted." Mel waved off the mass of Gryffindor girls, who left in disappointment.

"Aw, I was hoping for a good fight."

"You wanna duel me right her, right now?"

"Sure!"

"Please no, it`s too early for this."

"Come on!"

"We never get any action around here."

"It`s all overreactions."

Lily shut the door. "What did you do?" She said, much quieter this time.

Alice rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

"I believe it is called 'cutting your hair'." Mel whispered.

"It is amazing Alice, but I`m going back to sleep if you don't mind." Mattie mumbled, rolling over and jamming a pillow over her head.

"I needed a change." Alice said finally.

Lily`s eyes widened (as far as they could possibly go). "Are you alright? Is something wrong with your family? Did Ryan break up with you?"

"I broke up with him, thank you very much. You don`t have to be such a drama queen about it."

"Oh, Al, why didn`t you tell me?"

"You were busy."

"So you cut off all your hair?"

"I like it." Alice ran her fingers through her hair, which had only last night been past her shoulders but was now barley past her chin. "I didn`t do it because of Ryan or anything. I was just tired of being weighted down. I`ve been meaning to do it for a while, and last night seemed like the perfect time to do it."

Mary looked up from the homework she was checking over. "Well, it looks great."

"Thanks."

There was a knock at the door, and Sirius Black popped his head in. "Everything alright in here? Lily, have you got all that shouting out of your system?"

"You heard that? Sorry…" Lily`s face flushed.

Mattie lifted her head out of the pillow. "How did you get in here? Isn`t there a jinx on the stairs or something?"

"Have you forgotten?" He announced, using his extra-obnoxious king-of-the-universe voice that made the girls groan and roll their eyes. "I`m Sirius Black!"

With that, he dramatically strutted out, calling over his shoulder, "Like the hair, Prewitt."

"Like the PJ`s, Black." Alice called after him.

"Bet you do"

"Have fun falling down the stairs."

"Who said I was going down the stairs?"

* * *

The wind was trying it`s absolute hardest to blow away the few stragglers out by the lake after lunch, and Alice, Mary, and Lily were unfortunately among the few victims.

Mary, the smallest and lightest of the trio, dug her nails into her friend`s arms to keep herself on Earth. "WHO`S BLOODY IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE A PICNIC OUT HERE ON A DAY LIKE THIS ANYWWAY?!"

"WELL _SORRY, _I DIDN`T THINK THE BREEZE WOULD PICK UP THIS MUCH. I JUST WANTED TO GET AWAY FROM THE JUDGING EYES AT OUR TABLE!" Lilly yelled over the wind.

"BREEZE? IT`S A HURRICANE, LILS! WINDSTORM, GALE, TORNADO, WHIRLWIND, TWISTER! "

"YOU KNOW, OUR SITUATION IS NOT BEING HELPED BY THE FACT THAT ALL OF US ARE WEARING LARGE CLOAKS THAT ARE ACTING AS WIND SAILS. ACK, CAN ANYONE SEE IN THIS? I`M SHUTTING MY EYES, I KEEP GETTING DIRT BLOWN IN MY FACE."

"YOU WANNA TAKE `EM OFF AND FREEZE TO DEATH? OI, LOOK, SOMEONE`S AT THE DOOR TO THE SCHOOL! HEY! HELP! WE`RE GOING TO DIE OUT HERE!" Alice screamed, hoping the wind would carry her words to the shadow at the door.

The shadow disappeared.

"TWAT! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"

Two boys caught up to the girls from behind, linking on to the chain they`d formed.

"OUT FOR A STROLL?" Mary asked.

"WE WENT DOWN TO THE LAKE TO GET SOME PLANT SAMPLES FOR HERBOLOGY HOMEWORK." The shorter boy, wearing a Gryffindor uniform, said.

"YOU SECOND YEAR?" Lily asked, trying to remember what year she had to do that.

"THIRD," the other boy, Hufflepuff, said. "NEXT TIME I`LL BE SMART AND JUST EXCEPT A T. AIDEN MACMILLIAN, BY THE WAY."

"LILY EVANS."

"OH, I KNOW THAT. I`M BRADLEY ROBINS."

"ALICE PREWITT, NOW PLEASE STOP STEPPING ON MY FOOT."

"I`M MARY MCDONALD. WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY 'YOU KNOW THAT'?" Mary opened her eyes to try and look at the newcomers, but was immediately assaulted by her blonde hair.

"I`M ON THE GRYFFINDOR QUIDICH TEAM…."

"HUH? WHAT`S THAT GOT TO DO WITH ANYTHING?" Lily asked.

"IT`S GOT EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT, OUR CAPTAIN IS J-"

"LOOK! SOMEONE`S AT THE DOOR AGAIN!"

They were quite a bit closer to the school than they had been before, so they could make out the shape of five people standing at the doors. They were also relatively close to a group of stranded, huddled students by a tree.

"SHOULD WE TRY AND MAKE A MAD DASH FOR THE DOORS AND HOPE FOR THE BEST?"

"THERE`S NO WAY WE`D ALL MAKE IT. AIDEN, CAN YOU REACH THOSE PEOPLE?"

Aiden, the closest to the students, helped them link onto the chain. The new additions were four girls, all small, easily picked up by the wind, and wide-eyed.

"I`M COLD." One of the girls yelled.

"THANK YOU!"

"NO PROBLEM. DON`T LET GO."

The shadows in the school were now yelling at them, but it the wind was too loud for them to hear.

Bradley yelled out, "TOO BAD MATTIE`S NOT HERE."

"HOW DO YOU…OH, SHE`S ON THE QUIDICH TEAM. YEAH, BACK TO THAT, WHAT ABOUT YOUR CAPTAIN?" Lily screamed back.

He started to respond, but suddenly Lily felt herself being jerked forward rapidly against the wind. Since everyone had linked arms, this caused a chain reaction and in turn pulled Mary, Alice, Bradley, Aiden, and the little girls along with her. The group zoomed towards the school in a train of sorts, with Lily in front.

"Whooo!" One of the girls in the back screamed.

Unfortunately, the magic of all of this was ruined for Lily, who noticed that she was going very fast towards the school and had no way to slow herself down to a stop. It was like she was a dropped vase, pulled by gravity, and the only way to stop was to smash on the ground.

And oh, did she smash.

Lily whizzed in through the doors of the school and flew into something hard, plowing them both to the floor. Since her arm was still linked with Mary`s, the entire train of people toppled down with and on top of her.

"That was incredibly amazing!" Bradley called from somewhere above Lily.

"Let`s do that again!"

"Ow, you`re on my elbow."

"Somebody shut the door, it`s cold out there."

"I think I broke something."

"Don`t be a wimp."

"Has anyone got a hairbrush?"

Lily was too busy trying to look away from the hazel eyes of the boy underneath her.

He was shocked, and was trying not to look at her or smile. It was hard to keep a straight face in a situation like this, but somehow James managed to keep his composure and make his expression as unreadable as possible with Lily pressed on top of him.

"I`m sorry." She whispered.

He didn`t say a word, instead choosing to look at Sirius, Peter, Remus, and Frank, who were standing by the door, laughing at the heap of students their friend was trapped under.

"Are you gonna just stand there, or actually help?" Aiden asked

Frank and Remus recovered first and started to help people up.

"Thanks for saving us." Alice said as Frank pulled her to her feet.

Frank blushed. "It was mostly James. He was the one who recognized Lily by her hair and was able to accio her and pull you guys to safety."

"Yeah, but you were the one that got us to help you save them when you saw the people trapped out there." Peter added, making Frank redden ever so slightly more.

Lily`s hair was tickling James` face, she was so close. "Thank you for saving me."

"Get off me, Evans."

"I can`t, I have two Gryffindors and a Hufflepuff sitting on my back."

James glared. "Sirius, help get her off me."

"You could at least be a bit nicer about it." Lily mumbled.

"You want nicer? I just saved your pathetic life despite your complete lack of 'niceness' or consideration to everyone recently, and you want me to be nicer about it?"

"That`s such an overreaction, and if it pained you so much to help somebody for once-"

"FOR ONCE?"

"-then you shoulda just left me out there to just save myself! At least then I wouldn`t have to have you in my face!"

"Fine, I`ll put you back out there!" Sirius pulled Lily off James, and James drew his wand.

"Do it, I dare you!" Lily shouted, drawing her own wand.

"FLIPENDO!" James roared.

At the same time, Lily thundered "FURNUNCULUS!" before being blasted back against the hard wall.

James almost dropped his wand in surprise of the boils that had started to pop out onto his skin.

"AVIS!" Lily shouted, regaining enough energy to pick up her wand but not to stand.

"WINGARDIUM LEVI-ACH!" James put his arms up to protect himself from the birds Lily`d shot at him.

"ENOUGH!" a voice boomed from down the hall. Everyone turned to see Professor McGonagall, wand drawn, looking very put off. With one flick of her wand, the birds and boils were gone.

"Everyone in my office now."

* * *

The fourteen students were in the stiff office of Minerva McGonagall, all staring at their shoes. Lily had her arms around Alice and Sirius and was using them to help her stand since her right leg was throbbing with sharp pain.

"Mr. Robins, would you care to tell me what was going on back there?"

"We were trapped outside and Frank and the Marauders helped us in, Ma'am."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"Then why did Mr. Potter and Ms. Evans have their wands out?"

"James summoned us to bring us to the school, Professor."

"So there wasn`t any fighting going on that you saw?"

"No Professor."

"And you wouldn`t know who started said fighting?"

"No Professor."

"You have one detention, Robins. What about you, Ms. McDonald?"

"I couldn`t see anything, Professor. I had dirt in my eyes from the wind outside."

"Mr. Longbottom, do you know who started the fighting?"

"Yes. I did."

McGonagall sighed. "You didn`t have your wand out. One detention for you then, too. Ms. Evans, what happened to your leg?"

"I fell on the way in."

"Really. I suppose nobody is going to come clean?"

The four little girls on the end quavered a bit.

"Ms. Powell? Do you have something to add?" McGonagall asked of one of the girls, evidently a first year.

"No, Professor." The little girl smiled slightly at Lily, who winked. McGonagall was too busy writing out detention slips to notice.

The Professor handed out the detention slips. "You may go, I suppose, unless anyone else has something to tell me."

Nobody needed to be told twice.

**Can Mattie and Alice complete the bet? Will Lily do something that isn`t studying or causing drama? Will you ever find out how Sirius manages to get into the girls dorms? Can this ending get any cheesier [Spoiler alert: probably not!]?**

**ALL THAT AND MORE…in the next chapter.**


	6. The Weekend

**A/N: This is one of my favorite chapters I`ve written for any story...enjoy.**

* * *

**The Weekend**

_-Friday night-_

"Evans, we need to talk."

"Have you been drinking?"

Sirius took out a flask from his robes and took another swig. "Liquid courage. Want some?"

"I`m good, thanks. What do you want?"

"I want to be the godfather to your first born, but I`ll get to that. Lily, I don`t hate you."

"Well that makes one Marauder, even if it is just the booze talking."

"Lily-of-the-flowers, it is not just the booze talking. Well, maybe. But I am an EXPERT."

He swayed and caught himself on the wall.

"You sure look like one. Are you the Minister of Magic in your head too?"

Sirius ignored her. "Remember in fifth year when our dear friend Mary dated that beak-noised Ravenclaw, and I said he wouldn`t visit her in the hospital wing, and he didn`t?! And when I told you Peter and that Kathy girl would make it to the end of the year and then split, and they did?! And when I said that Gardner boy was cheating on Marlene, and he was?!"

"'That Gardner Boy' told you he was cheating on Marlene."

"STILL!"

"So you`re an expert….of what exactly? Drinking? Break-ups?"

"I AM THE VOLUPTUOUSLY-HAIRED EXPERT OF LOVE!"

"Mate, you`re sloshed."

"Evans, I know love. I know Prongs. I know you. And I know you and James will fall in love, get married, have kids, and live happily ever after."

"Where`s the guys? You need to rest, you`re becoming delusional…"

"Evans." Sirius put his drunken hand on her shoulder. "I know it to be true, and I want to be the godfather."

"Alright, Si, you can be the godfather of the imaginary baby I will have in the alternate universe where James and I fall in love."

"So yes?"

"Yes. Now come on, let`s get you up to your-"

"Brilliant."

Sirius passed out cold in Lily`s arms.

"Brilliant." Lily echoed sarcastically.

* * *

_-Saturday-_

"Are you sure…"

"He offered. He wanted us to sit with him."

"Wanted, before I-"

"You`re sitting with me or I`ll make Peter sit with you and do his Dumbledore impression."

"I like his Dumbledore impression."

"Fine. Then I`ll make him do his Snape impression."

"You`re feisty with that new haircut."

Lily reluctantly followed Alice up to the row of stand where Remus Lupin was sitting. Alice plopped down on the far end next to Remus, leaving Lily between Remus and Frank. Marlene, Mary, and Marlene`s roommates, Emmeline and Dorcas, filed onto the row below them. Peter squeezed in on the end next to Frank.

"No Mel?" Remus asked Alice, blatantly ignoring Lily.

Alice smiled. "She got her job back, mostly thanks to the uprising you Marauders led at the last two matches."

Remus grinned, remembering a particularly eventful Hufflepuff-Slytherin match.

Below, on the pitch, the players were beginning to stream out of the locker rooms.

"Remus…" Lily said quietly.

He stayed facing Alice, unresponsive.

"I`m really sorry. It was so stupid."

Nothing.

"Is there anything I can-"

From up in her booth, Melody greeted the crowd as the magical microphone crackled to life.

"Hellooooo Hogwarts! This is you`re newly reinstated announcer, who thanks you for protesting until Professor McGee let me back on! Let`s have a big round of applause for the lovely professor!"

The stands erupted in zealous shouts and cheers. Lily joined in the clapping and stamping of the feet, choosing to save her voice for all the apologizing she`d have to do during the match.

"Let`s hear it for the currently undefeated…RAVEN-CLAW!"

The blue and silver players zoomed clockwise around the field, circling like hawks and doing tricks on their brooms.

"Show-offs." Frank muttered.

Remus scoffed. "And Gryffindor isn`t?"

"And now, ladies and gents, witches and wizards, please throw your hands in the air….it`s time to give it up for….GRY-FIN-DOR!"

Melody hit the music switch as the Gryffindor players launched into the air. They too circled the pitch, but counterclockwise. Several players punched the air and whooped as they circled, and their captain flew over the stands, high-fiving the audience.

McGonagall made Melody turn the music off as the players slowed and went to their respective ends of the pitch.

"The captains are coming forward to shake hands…this is Lawrence`s first match against Gryffindor as a captain, so it`ll be interesting to see her strategy. This isn`t Hufflepuff, folks."

Professor leaned over and hissed something in Melody`s ear.

"It was a good natured joke, Professor- the Hufflepuffs understand and they know we love them. Isn`t that right, guys? While the captains shake hands and get into position, I invite you all to give a badger-like snort of appreciation to the Hufflepuff nearest and dearest to you."

Lily leaned over to Frank and snorted in his ear.

"Hey!"

They could barely hear him above the snorting that had broken out around them.

Mary snorted at him from his other side.

"Come on, I`m not that laid back. Go snort somebody else."

"The teams are in position now….Here`s the tip off….Ravenclaw has possession and Williamson is taking it up the field. He passes to Lyles-Oi! Good shot by Peters, Lyles will be feeling that one in the morning….speedy little Robins takes it up… Ooh, nice dodging, the beaters should really be paying more attention to tha-Don`t point that thing over here, Black. You know it`s true."

"Everyone`s favorite little Robin has recovered quickly and passes to Bell. She`s weaving up- and gets dispossessed by Lawrence, was that a hip check? Anyway, It`s clear Lawrence is determined… passes to Williamson…He`s closing in on the big Robin now, coming closer and closer to those hoops….could Ravenclaw be the first to score?...But it is not to be, apparently, as Bell takes back the quaffle. She passes to the little Robin-it`s a term of endearment, Bradley. And you are a fast little bird..."

Bradley saluted Melody in her booth as he whizzed past.

"Clare "Ginge Mister" Harper tries to knock the little Robin out of the air, but he`s too fast for her…. He passes to Perkins, who`s rumored to be considering going professional next year when she`s outta school…SCORE!"

The red and gold went wild, thrilled to have scored so early in the game.

"Excellent start to the season for Gryffindor! Potter has just done a roll on his broom, as if reminding all of us that`s just how they roll. Let`s see if they can keep this up."

Lily thought this was as good a time as any to try and strike up conversation with Remus. With sprits high, she decided to try her luck.

"Rem….is there anything I can do that would let you forgive me?" She whispered, not taking her eyes of the field.

Remus` eyes wavered on his mate who was circling the field from above, looking for a lucky glint of gold.

"Give me your first born child."

"Why does everyone keep asking about my first born child? Who says I`m even having children?!"

"Is that a yes?"

"Why do you want her?"

"It will be a him."

"Okay…Why do you want him?"

"Because Padfoot is convinced you and Prongs are destined to miraculously fall in love and have kids and live happily ever after, and Padfoot is never wrong when it comes to relationships."

"Even if Black is right, which he won`t be because that`s completely and horrendously impossible for James to even forgive me, let alone fall in love with me, and I am not in love with him nor will I ever be, why would you want our baby?"

"Any child born of you two must be incredibly lucky, because he was born in the first place despite all odds, since as you said; you and James get along like Padfoot and reading. So I`ll take him to a casino and make a fortune off the winnings and retire to my golden mansion. Then I shall forgive you, and let you visit your child and my ginormous library on weekends."

"You`ve obviously put a lot of thought into this."

"So that`s a yes?"

"You can`t have my baby. Even if it, by some twisted fate, is a spawn of Potter."

"Alright, never mind. It was a long shot anyway. I`ll settle for all the chocolate frogs I know you keep in that bin under your bed for special occasions."

"Most friends would just hug and make up. Why do I have to bribe you?"

"Because you used me to betray my best friend."

"I didn`t mean to-"

"Anyway…"

"Fine. I`ll give `em to you after the match."

"I love you, Lily-Bear." Remus sang, hugging her.

"Mmhmm. By the way, about the k-"

"Let's never speak of it again."

"Agreed. Strongly."

* * *

"Could this be…? He pulls up from his dive…..and YES! Potter has caught the snitch!"

"Lawrence has tasted her first tears of defeat as a captain, but there is no doubt she`ll be back and bloodthirsty as ever for more, soon enough."

"Gryffindor now has one loss, one win under its belt, which is alright for the beginning of the season."

"Thank you all for coming, and I`ll see you all next time for the brutal slaughter that will be…HUFFLEPUFF VERSUS SLYTHERYN! You can take that whichever way you want to, people."

People filed off the stands and the Gryffindor supporters clambered onto the pitch to congratulate the players.

"Brilliant catch, Potter."

Mike Lee, one of the backup Gryffindor chasers, started cheering, "POTTER, POTTER, POTTER, POTTER..."

"Come off it, Lee, you`re just doing that cause you think Potter will take it to heart and not bench you next time." Mattie laughed.

Mike stopped his chant. "Don`t say it so loud while he`s right there…"

"It`s okay Mike, you can chant all you like, I won`t mind." James laughed, startling Mike.

"Oi, Robins, you`re little brother`s following in your footsteps as a spectacular player."

"Meh, he`s alright. A bit zippy."

"Zippy? What`s that supposed to mean?" Bradley scoffed.

"As in, 'Zippidy-do-dah…'."

"Oh, stuff it, Josh. You`re just jealous because I made the team at a younger age than you did."

"Nice work there at the end, Vanessa. You really had my back on that one." Mattie said, throwing her arm around the younger girl.

Melody joined the crowd. "Pete, Lupin, do you think we should start setting up for the party now? It`s half seven."

"Right-o, Mels. Hey Mary, care to join us? We might need you to help carry certain…party necessities… up to the common room."

"Alright, but you can`t laugh if I drop anything explosive this time."

"Actually, they set you us last time." Melody said, her green eyes twinkling.

Mary`s jaw dropped "Seriously?!"

"Yes, love?" Sirius said, turning away from his adoring fans.

"Not you."

"Actually, he was in on it too."

"BLACK!"

* * *

Three hours later, the victory party was still going strong.

The Robins brothers were nearing the end of a heated game of exploding snap, and tons of people had encircled them and were cheering their favorite brother on. Linda had even got some people chanting her boyfriend`s name.

Next to them, Mary was standing as still as she possibly could with her arms out while Mike, Emmeline, and Johnny put cups of butterbeer on her arms. Marlene had bet her a galleon she couldn`t fit seven on each arm, and she had three to go…

Alice and Sirius, after quite a few drinks, were snogging by the portrait hole.

Frank and Dorcas were playing darts, using a picture of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team as the dartboard.

In a circle by the fire, Remus, Melody, James, Mattie, Lily, and Peter were playing ten fingers.

Lily, who had eight fingers up, was next. "I have never eaten over two sandwiches in one meal."

"Only two? Come one, you guys haven`t eaten more than _two_? I ate five at lunch just last Tuesday!" Peter exclaimed in shock as only he (who was now at seven fingers), James (four), and Remus (six) put down a finger.

"Some of us can`t unhinge our jaws." Lily laughed.

Remus cleared his throat. "I have never fixed my hair during a class."

Lily, Mattie, and Melody each put down a finger. Mattie nudged James. "That`s you too, mate."

"Come on, Prongsy. We`ve seen you do it."

James begrudgingly lowered a finger.

"I have never…. got even mildly excited over a mark on a test." James said.

"Low blow, Potter." Lily said as she and Remus each put down a finger.

"I have never blown up the kitchens." Melody said, looking right at Mattie.

"It was an accident! No house elves got hurt, anyway. I was just trying to make a shortcut to the common room, is that so wrong?!"

She and Remus were both tied at five, James was at three, Melody and Lily at six, and Peter was winning with seven.

"I`ve never read a book for fun." Mattie grinned, making everyone but her and James lose a finger.

James cracked the knuckles of his remaining three fingers. "I have never kissed Remus."

Lily looked away, and was the only one to lower her finger. "I`ve never cursed Severus Snape for the fun of it."

Guiltily, the Marauders all dropped a finger. "I`ve never called someone an arrogant toerag."

"I`ve never stolen a snitch." Lily snapped back.

"I`ve never been in love." Melody said quietly, cutting off James` retort. She lowered a finger.

James also dropped a finger, his last, and stood up. Without saying a word, he walked away from the fire and up to his dorm.

"Who was he in love with?" Lily asked Remus her voice hushed, barley above a whisper, yet everyone in the small circle heard her.

Remus raised an eyebrow, and Peter turned, shocked.

"You, of course."


	7. The Day Of Reckoning

**The Day Of Reckoning **

**(Monday)**

"Have you got the list ready yet?" Mary inquired merrily.

Mattie sighed, having been made to write out the punishment ideas for Mary, Lily, and Alice to choose from. "I finished it last night, it`s over on Lily`s nightstand."

Alice leaned over and snagged the list, scanning the contents.

Lily sighed. "I`m going to do a punishment too."

"Why? You completed the bet."

"Yeah, but not in the way I should have. I didn`t deserve to win it."

"Are you sure?" Alice said, looking up from the list. "Some of these are pretty brutal."

"I can take it."

"Alrighty then."

"If you guys are going to decide now, I`m leaving." Mattie said, getting up. "It was bad enough writing my own death sentences, I don`t want to have to listen to you debate which one I should get."

Melody followed her out. "Call us back in when you`re done."

"How bad are they?" Lily asked Mattie as they descended into the common room.

Mattie winced at the thought. "Pretty bad. Especially the raw egg one…"

"Don`t tell me one of us has to eat a raw egg?!"

"Well, not eat…"

"Do you think it`s too late for me to go back and tell them I changed my mind?"

"Changed your mind about what?" Remus said, sauntering over.

"You know that bet that you weren't supposed to find out about?" Melody said. Remus nodded. "Alice and Mary are upstairs deciding what to do to those of us who lost the bet.

"Lils didn`t lose."

"I chose to stand among the losers."

"Can I go suggest some things?"

Mattie gestured to the stairs they`d just come down. "Go ahead."

"I can`t get into the girls dorms."

"I thought all the Marauders knew a way around it…"

"It only works for the other three."

"Well, then I guess you can`t help them decide…" Lily sang cheerfully.

"Speaking of help, Peter, James and Sirius are in the library looking for that secret passage you guys mentioned the other day. I was just on my way down to help look for it, do you want to come?

* * *

"I bet it`s in the 'Muggles' section."

"Obviously, nobody ever goes over there." James said, fiddling a scrap piece of parchment.

"I go into that section all the time!"

James folded his paper into an airplane, and then launched it at Remus` head. "Moony, no offense, but you wouldn`t notice a secret passage if it was lit up with neon lights."

Remus grumbled to himself and Lily pressed on the spines of the books.

"Lils, what are you doing?"

"In cheesy muggle movies, the red-haired girl who fiddles with the bookcase always finds the secret door."

"But doesn`t the ginger girl who finds the passage wind up being a damsel in distress?" Melody asked

"When have you ever watched muggle TV?

"In Muggle Studies we had to watch some movies for an 'intro to muggle culture' or something like that. I only paid attention during the cartoons."

"Of course you would." Lily`s foot bumped against a large book on the bottom shelf, and the patch of floor under her gave out. Before anyone could react, their red-haired friend had fallen down through the trapdoor, a rabbit hole of sorts, and disappeared from sight. The floor closed behind her with a click.

"Merlin, what did she do? Look around, there`s got to be a lever or button or something…"

"I hope she`s alright…"

Melody shook her head, rolling her eyes in disbelief. "I Soo called it."

"What else happens in the muggle cartoons?" Mattie asked, her eyes wide.

"Well, the bad guy is either the butler, gardener, or the quiet-but-loveable friend whom everybody underestimates."

They all turned to Peter.

"It wasn`t me!" he squeaked.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "What wasn`t you?"

"I don`t know, whatever Mel`s saying I did!"

"Guilty conscience…" Mattie whispered. "Maybe it was him after all!"

"What did I supposedly do?"

"Everything! Anything!"

"Maybe he pulled the lever that made Lily fall through the floor!"

"Yeah!"

"He`s going to get us next!" Sirius jumped out between Peter and James, as if to block his mate from the wrath of Peter. In doing so, he forcibly banging into the shelf, kicking the book that Lily had hit minutes ago.

Behind him, James shot down through the trapdoor, a look of pure shock on his face before the darkness swallowed him up.

"BLACKKKKK!" He called as the light from the library disappeared when the floor slid back.

* * *

After falling for what felt like forever, Lily finally hit the cold stone ground.

Everything was pitch black. Even when she got her bearings, Lily`s eye couldn't adjust to this darkness.

She got up and felt around, finding only three walls, two parallel to each other and the third only a few feet from where she had landed. Lily cursed herself for leaving her wand in her dorm.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light from above and a loud yell. Lily jumped back as something fell and hit the ground with a moan.

"I think I hit something." Lily reignited James` voice instantly out of the darkness.

"No kidding."

"No, I mean with my arm as I was coming down. No need to be snide, Evans."

"Why did _you_ come after me?"

"Believe me, it wasn`t by choice. Black accidently shoved me."

"Where are yo-oh. I think I found your foot."

"That`s my hand."

Lily jumped away, dropping the thing she`d been holding. "Sorry."

"It`s fine. Where are we?"

"I don`t know. The passage continues down that way a bit." Lily pointed in the direction of the space without a wall, forgetting he couldn`t see her hand.

"Which way?"

"Oh, um…" She lifted his hand and gestured in the direction with it. "Have you got your wand on you?"

James responded by lighting up the room with a flick of his wand. Lily and James` faces had been inches apart. They pulled back abruptly.

"Potter."

"Evans."

"I`m sorry I snogged your best mate."

"I wasn`t aware you snogged Sirius."

"Ha ha, you`re hilarious. Twat."

"Nice apology, Evans. The insult is a nice touch. I don`t really see why you`re apologizing, though."

"I just told you why."

"So you`re apologizing to Wormy and Pads too?"

"No… I wasn`t going to, anyway…"

"Then why in Merlin`s name are you apologizing to me?" He said icily, and farther down the passage ahead of her.

Even though he was far from earshot, Lily whispered back, "I don`t know."

But she did.

* * *

"Great, now we`ve got two people trapped in a passage."

"What would the people in the cartoons do, Mel?"

"Um….They would split up and look for clues. Also, they would have a dog that would stumble upon answers all the time."

Remus` eyes lit up. "I can get a dog! Would that help?"

"Where are you going to get a dog?"

"I live on a dog farm; I know how to call them to me."

"You live in Surrey, Moons. Besides, there`s no such thing as a dog farm."

"Still! I can get us a dog. Come on, Padfoot, let`s go get the dog."

"Oh. Oh! Okay!" Sirius and Remus disappeared among the stacks. When Remus emerged, there was a large shaggy dog at his side.

"Where`s Sirius?" Melody questioned.

"I had to sacrifice him to the dog gods in exchange for this wonderful mutt. Come on, let`s look for clues!"

"This is ridiculous. This is what they do in muggle movies?" Mattie laughed, peering under a table.

Melody shrugged. "More or less."

Peter scrunched his nose. "Are you sure this will help us find James and Lily?"

"Silence, evil fiend! We will unmask you soon enough!" Melody announced, throwing her hands up and spinning on Peter, who jumped back in fright.

At this point, almost everyone in the library was staring at them.

"Back to your books, all of you! We are launching an investigation!" Mattie shouted at all of them, producing a magnifying lens from her robes. Madam Prince gave the four and their dog a withering glance, and they quickly stopped shouting.

* * *

"Look, James…"

"I don`t care, Evans."

"I know ab-"

"I honestly don`t care."

"James."

"Not at all."

"I do."

"And I don`t care about that, either."

"Great. Wonderful for you, but it looks like we`re gonna be stuck in here for a while, and I just want to say-"

"Why look, a rock. I do like rocks, Evans. Especially rocks I can use to bash in the heads of chatty gingers."

"I hate you, Potter."

"The feeling is, as I`ve mentioned, mutual."

Lily let out an angry hiss of air.

"Let it out. Go on."

"Ug. I`m not going to take this anymore."

Lily took off sprinting down the passage.

"Evans!" James ran after her.

* * *

"What should we do now?" Remus said. The group was sitting at a table in the library, the evidence they`d found spread out in front of them.

"Let`s go over what we`ve got so far. Mattie, what did you find?"

"I have a piece of string I found on the floor near the restricted section."

"Terrific. Peter?"

"I have the paper air plane James threw at Moony before he was sucked through the floor. Also, a written confession from a third year that says he kidnapped Lily and James."

Mattie and Remus laughed, but Melody stayed serious.

"That could mean anything. Remy?"

"I found a pen under a bookcase."

"Excellent!"

"What should we do now?"

"Hmm…" Melody tried to remember the movie. "Now we feed the dog and the guy with the longest hair, and the monster-slash-bad guy will reveal itself to us."

"But Sirius isn`t here!"

"Then we`ll just feed the dog. To the kitchens!"

The gang scrambled off, with their shaggy black dog in the lead.

* * *

Eventually, Lily reached a dead end. There was a large rock blocking the tunnel.

After kicking the boulder for several minutes, she slumped down until James caught up with her.

"Do you know any rock-moving spells?" She asked.

James smirked, remembering she didn`t have a wand. "One."

He tapped the giant rock with his wand, softly whispering the spell, and the boulder shrunk to the size of a pebble.

"Oh."

James looked around the new passage they`d entered. The walls were no longer made of cold stone, and there were two trails now, leading in opposite direction. "Hey, hey, I think I know where we are! Come on!"

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down the left path at an alarming speed. After many twist and turns in the passage, James led her thought a small opening and into an actual Hogwarts corridor.

"B-but that`s the one eyed witch statue! Potter, that was brilliant!"

"I try. Well, no I don`t, but I know my secret tunnels well."

"Come on, let`s find the others before they tear up the library looking for us."

* * *

Peter, Mattie, Remus, Sirius, and Melody were not in the library. Nor were they in the kitchens, Great Hall, any of the classrooms, Astronomy Tower, Owlery, anywhere outside on the grounds, or in a broom cupboard.

After nearly forty minutes of searching, James and Lily went upstairs to the common rooms, defeated.

As they stepped inside, a loud voice caused them to freeze.

"Now let`s see who the villain really is!" The voice, clearly Melody`s declared.

"How will we know that?" Peter`s voice called nervously.

"By connecting the clues of course!"

"Go on…"

"First, we have James` paper air plane. If you recall, he threw it at Remus. So clearly he was trying to tell Remus something." There was a pause and a crinkling of paper. "Remus, can you read aloud what the paper air plane contains?"

"A smiley face."

"A smiley face?"

"Yes, that is what I said."

"So then James was happy before he was kidnapped."

"Kidnapped? I thought he just fell into a trapdoor?"

"No, he was kidnapped, by one of us! Otherwise, he would have found his way out by now, because James knows every passage in the school."

"It`s true." James whispered to Lily.

"This means that James was not aware of the danger that was about to befall him! Which means James could not have been in on the kidnapping! So this eliminates Sirius from the suspect list, even if he did bump James down the tunnel."

"Why does it eliminate Sirius?"

"Because he has a big mouth, and would not be able to keep this to himself, even if he was trying to get Lily and James alone together."

There was a loud bark, and some shushing.

"This brings me to the pen Remus found on the shelf. James must have used this to draw his smiley face, and then put it down on the shelf. But where could he have gotten a pen from? The only people among us who carry pens are Lily, Remus, and Peter, and Lily wouldn`t give James a pen, because she thinks he is a prick. James didn`t get it from Remus, because Remus is very stern lending out pens, and would not let James leave it on the shelf. This leads us to Peter."

"I DID IT! I CONFESS, IT WAS ME!" Peter cried.

"No you didn`t. I was just about to explain why this means you didn`t do it."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay."

"Unless you did do it…?" inquired Remus.

"I didn`t actually do it. It was just so much pressure; I wanted her to stop staring at me like that…."

"Like I was saying, this leads us to Peter. If this is in fact Peter`s pen-"

"It is."

"Then if he was the kidnapper, he would want the pen back, in case he needed a pointy object to threaten James and Lily with. The confession he found was probably written by a younger student as a favor because he was scared we were going to burn him at the stake or something because I said the bad guy is always the quiet on. Also, he ate three sandwiches and a pie in the kitchen, and no guilty kidnapper could eat that much."

"Now Mr. Lupin here has been in the Muggle section of the library before, which might lead us to believe he was the villain and he had known of the passage. But, as James pointed out before he was so cruelly taken from us, Remus could not find a secret passage on his own if his pitiful life depended on it."

"Hey!"

"…So it could not be he who kidnapped our friends. Now, this brings us to our dear friend Matilda."

"Ooh. This is gonna be good."

"As we all know, Mattie is the cleverest out of all of us when it comes to making secretive and elaborate plans. It is thanks to her that I am able to be so good at deduction, because any best friend of hers has to be able to hold her own in a battle of wits."

"Do you want me to interject here and prove my own innocence, or are you getting there?"

"Patience. Mattie is the most likely suspect, because of her extensive knowledge of passageways and plotting skills. But Mattie will never pick up a book or walk into the library for enjoyment, unless she is going to hurt someone with the book. So Mattie wouldn`t wander around the 'Muggle' section, and wouldn`t know of the trapdoor that resided there. Also, she was not fully focused at the time of Lily`s kidnapping, because she and I were whispering about what punishments she had put on the list that Mary and Alice are looking over. So she is also in the clear."

"This leaves one person!" Mattie shouted. "You, Mels!"

"That is very true. For one thing, the string Mattie found on the floor is the same color of my robes, but it is also the standard color of all of our robes! I take Muggle Studies, so I have visited the 'Muggle' section frequently to research things. And lastly, but most blatantly, I knew Lily was going to get kidnapped! So clearly, the kidnapper must be me!"

There was crash, and Peter yelled "Get her!"

James and Lily took the opportunity to step out into full view of the room, and they saw the chaos that had broken out.

Peter, Remus, and a dog were chasing after Melody, who was running towards the fire, as Mattie pulled out a packet of emergency floo powder from her robes and threw it into the fire, shouting "Go! They`ll never catch you if you flee now! You`re too young to go to Azkaban!"

Mary and Alice, who had been coming down the stairs to tell their friends what they`d decided upon, were swept down the stair as it became a ramp, because Remus had accidentally hit the bottom step with his foot in the chase for Melody. The girls landed in the common room and were sent skidding across the floor. In the process, Mary`s glasses flew off her face and landed under a table.

"My glasses!" Mary cried, although nobody could hear her over the madness. "I can`t see without my glasses!"

"Hey! Hey, people, we`re right here." James said, although nobody paid any attention to him.

"EVERYBODY, BE COOL!" Lily shouted.

All Gryffindors and dogs in the common room froze.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody blinked.

Nobody breathed.

Everybody stared at the two supposedly kidnapped students standing before them.

"Lily-of-the-flowers! You`re alive!" Sirius shouted and hugged Lily, lifting her into the air (the dog had mysteriously disappeared when Lily had screamed and made everyone look at her).

"Love you too, Padfoot." James said as the mob descended upon them.

Peter joined the hug. "LILY! YOU`RE UN-KIDNAPPED!"

Remus butted in, shouting, "WE SAVED YOU! YESSSS!"

"We saved ourselves." Lily said, but the boys didn`t seem to hear her.

Well, except for James, who remarked, "Actually, _I_ saved us."

The others didn`t seem to hear that either.

"So you didn`t kidnap them after all?"

"I wasn`t sure, actually. I thought I might have modified my memory to avoid suspicion, but I wasn`t positive."

"I knew you didn`t do it." Mattie laughed. "If you`d found a trapdoor that cool, you would have shown me ages ago."

"Good point."

"That`s why I`m the elaborate plotting one."

"How did you guys get out?"

"We landed in a tunnel that was behind the big rock in the one eyed witch passage."

"Oooh… that`s pretty brilliant."

Meanwhile, Alice had found Mary`s glasses and was helping her up.

"Excuse me." Mary said.

"I know right! This is the-"James was saying.

"Excuse me."

"-beginning of a-"

"Excuse her!" Alice shouted.

They stopped talking, and Remus, Sirius, and Peter let go of Lily.

"Can we talk to Mattie, Lily, and Mels please?"


	8. The Day Of Pain

**The Day Of Pain**

**(Tuesday)**

A third of Gryffindor house was missing from the breakfast table on that particularly chilly Tuesday morning that followed, what most had come to call, the "Muggle Mystery Madness Incident". As clueless as most people were that early in the morning, students had begun to notice that there were little to no Gryffindor Girls between years four and seven at the table.

"Prongs, why are there less people staring at me today? Something is wrong! There is a disturbance!" Sirius, usually half asleep in his bacon at this time on normal mornings, was looking around in distress, trying to figure out what was different.

Peter stopped stuffing his face long enough to notice the gaps at the table. "Where is everybody?"

"How am I supposed to know? Moony, have you got a clue where everybody is?"

"Not at all. Wait, I think the demographic that is missing, if I am not mistaken, is the girls."

"That would explain Padfoot`s attention deficiency problem…"

"Stop using big words! I can`t handle them at the best of times, and right now they are going to make me explode!"

Remus scanned the table until he found one of the few girls who had bothered to show. "Linda Perkins is here, why don`t you ask her where everybody went?"

"Oi, Perkins-"

"Nicely, Pads. Don`t be obnoxious. She`s not a bloke, you know." Remus hissed.

"-I mean, hello Linda. I was wondering if you know where most of our house is on this fine morning."

"Oh yeah, everybody`s still up in the dorm. I was up there earlier helping, but it`s an absolute madhouse."

"Helping with what?"

Linda laughed "You don`t know? Well, you`ll see soon enough. It`s gonna be quite a shock, I`ll tell you that."

The boys tried to get Linda to give them another hint, but she wouldn`t say another word on the subject.

After a few minutes, a gaggle of girls (all forth years) entered the hall, whispering and giggling.

"I can`t believe…"

"….hot pink…"

"…six inches…"

The Marauders tried to ask the girls what was going on in the dorms, but Linda was too fast for them. By the time the boys got there, the girls were already sworn to secrecy.

"You know, we can just pop up into the rooms ourselves and see what all the fuss is about…" James said slowly.

Remus frowned. "No fair! You know I can`t come with you."

"Sorry Moons, it`s not our fault that you-"

James stopped talking when he saw Linda make a break for the door, and without taking a moment to register why, he bolted after her.

"Don`t tell him what is happening in the dorms!" Linda gasped to the second wave of girl who`d come in the hall.

"Come on Perkins! No fair, I was winning!"

Bradley came in the hall just after the second group of Gryffindor girls.

"You would not believe what I just passed on the stairs."

"Wha-"

"Don`t tell!" Linda quipped.

Bradley slid onto the bench. "Oh, I wasn`t going to. You can`t describe that sort of thing and do it justice. All I`m saying on the matter is," he turned to the Marauders, "It`s horrifically atrocious."

"A true work of art." A younger girl down the table piped up, causing everyone in the know to laugh.

Linda looked up at the doors to the Great Hall as a large group entered with the aforementioned horrifically atrocious masterpiece in the center.

"And here she is now."

The remainder of Gryffindor house joined the table, but only one member really seemed to matter.

Her hair was teased up to three times its normal volume, and atop her head was a light-up gold cowgirl hat that had been lent to her by a fifth year. She had on Gryffindor lion earrings she`d borrowed, and a hot pink boa was covering her bare neck and shoulders. She was wearing a red strapless mini dress belonging to Vanessa Peters, and her fingernails had each been painted a different shade of horrific pink. To top it all off, she had gold knee-high cowboy boots that covered more of her (in her opinion, not a proven fact) than the dress did.

Unfortunately, the poor girl subjected to this monstrous ensemble was none other than Melody.

"Alice, Mary, you two have souls made of pure concentrated evil." Melody whispered through gritted teeth as she sat down and blatantly ignored everyone and thing around her besides her toast.

Mary stifled a laugh. "It was Mattie`s idea."

"Matilda Bell, you are the child of the devil."

"Thank you my dear best friend. As much as I`d love to take full credit on this one, I said you had to be dressed by the dorm. I didn`t put this little disaster together."

"Fine, then I also hate every single girl in Gryffindor. You all better sleep with one eye open."

"You know, I think you`re pulling it off."

"Shut up."

"Is this part of the bet?" Remus asked.

Alice grinned. "Yeah, and it gets better. Guess what I got from the kitchen this morning, Matts!"

Mattie grimaced as Alice placed a large lemon on the table.

"It can`t be that bad…" Mattie whispered to herself.

"She`s gotta eat one with every meal!" Melody said gleefully, fixing her cowboy hat.

Mary leaned over and chopped the lemon up into fourths and plopped it down on Mattie`s plate. "Eat up."

"Oh, she`s picking it up…" Melody said, narrating her friend`s pain in her Quidditch commenter voice, "Ah, she`s trying to eat the insides of the first lemon slice in one go…. Oooh, she`s a quarter of the way done right now if she can manage to swallow…poor thing. How you feeling there, mate? Her face shows the signs of facing excruciating sourness, and she`s on her second quarter. How`s your mouth feeling?"

"Ugh, it`s sort of shriveling up, closing in on itself. Gah, I feel sick."

"You can do it! She`s not going for the same approach as she did the first bit, she`s just sort of sucking the life out of it now, much as it`s sucking the life out of her, as it would appear."

"What`s your punishment?" Sirius asked Lily.

"Oh, it`s much worse than this. You`ll see, just wait until History of Magic."

Breakfast ended ten minutes later, and as the sour-faced (she wasn`t particularly mad, it was mostly just the lemon) Mattie and her strangely-dressed friend made their way to Transfiguration, Mary ran up behind them.

"Are you sure-"

"If I`m doing this, I`m not doing this half way." Melody replied. "I had our entire house doing my hair and nails this morning, I`m not going to back out now."

"Alright, but McGonagall…"

"It`ll be fine."

The trio walked into class and took their seats. Around them, the class was abuzz with whispers.

Professor McGonagall walked in and immediately the class went silent, like someone had flicked a switch and turned them all off.

"Everyone come up with your partner and get a wastebasket. We will be practicing the duck transformations."

Mattie looked to her friend and raised her eyebrows. Melody bravely stood up and walked with her friend to the front of the room to collect their wastebasket.

Just keep walking, she thought to herself. Professor McGee was getting up in her years, so maybe she wouldn`t see…

"Excuse me! Can you come back here a moment!"

Melody froze in her tracks. "Yes, Processor McGee?"

After several years of being the announcer at Quidditch games, Melody knew when her favorite professor was about to kill her and when she was restraining herself from laughing. To the untrained eye, this would appear to be the former, but it was in fact the later.

"What are you, scratch that, why are you wearing that ridiculous outfit instead of your uniform?"

"Well, see Professor, I didn`t want to kiss Sirius Black for personal reasons and the fact that I`ve seen him put five hotdogs in his mouth at once and eat them without chocking."

"Ew. When was that?" Mary whispered

"I don`t see how that pertains to this situation…"

"Very much so, Professor."

"I`m afraid I have to send you to the Headmaster`s office."

"Wait!" Mattie shouted, and threw a chair across the room. "Do I get sent to the headmaster`s office too now?"

"No, Miss Bell, you get a detention. Sit down."

Mattie took off her shoes. "Why look! I don`t have the proper uniform attire! I believe this is an obstruction that will earn me a trip to the Headmaster`s!"

The Professor waved them out of class. "Just go, both you."

Once they were safely out of earshot of the classroom, Melody commented quietly, "You didn`t have to do that, you know. I would have been fine."

"I know, but after this you`re probably going to be in detention all week, so I thought you might like some company when you`re polishing those trophies. That`s what best friends are for, right? Someone to laugh with from behind bars?"

* * *

****_-History of Magic….one lemon, six detentions later-_

History of Magic was the last class of the day that Tuesday, and it was defiantly the most interesting.

"Can I borrow your cloak? I`m freezing!" Melody begged Mary.

Mary smirked as her friend struggled to make the boa cover as much skin as possible. "I would, since it is awfully chilly in here….but that would be going against the purpose of your punishment. Speaking of, who`s got Lily`s special little surprise?"

"It`s in my bag. I just got it from the kitchens, so it`s still a bit cold." Alice whispered, so Lily didn`t overhear.

"I`m almost grateful for the lemons. At least we knew what was coming." Mattie muttered to Melody.

Lily walked in, nodding at her friends but choosing to just go straight to her seat. They could see the restrained fear in her eyes.

Professor Binns floated in and the clumps of students who had been talking at their friend`s desks scattered back to their seats. There were no stragglers to saunter into class late that day, because everyone had heard that something big was going to happen, something they didn`t want to miss.

Mattie slid into her seat in the back of the room, listening happily to the rumors swirling that were nowhere near the truth. This plan was one of the best punishments she`d come up with, and she was extremely proud of herself. While everyone speculated around her, she leaned back in her seat and smiled, Cheshire Cat-like.

"You know, don`t you?" Sirius said, turning to the girl sitting next to him. "Lily told me something big was going to happen right around now. You`re in on it, right?"

Mattie smirked. "In on it? I came up with it."

James leaned forward in his seat, his head almost knocking with Sirius`. "Come on, Mats! You`ve gotta tell us!"

"Can`t you just wait a few minutes?"

"If we wait any longer our heads will explode!"

Up at the board, Binns droned on about whatever dismal topic they had a test on Friday. "And over several decades, the evolved with noticeable change…"

"You`ll get showered in brain juice!"

"In order for me to be showered in brain juice, you guys would need brains."

"….without which we would never have known the significance of…" Binns was

"We stole some of Moony`s!"

"Just watch Alice."

The boys huffed and settled back into their seats.

Meanwhile, in the center of the room, Lily was uncharacteristically not paying attention at all.

Her hair stood on end, and every cell in her body was tingling in fear. All she could hear was her own pulse, which roared in her ears and was going faster, faster, faster.

Behind her, Alice reached into her bag and pulled out the small, cold weapon she was about to dutifully release onto her best friend. It fit perfectly in the palm of her hand. Smiling, Alice washed away her guilt with thoughts of what she and Mary had discussed earlier. A girl`s gotta do what a girl`s gotta do. Lily had asked for it, literally.

Binns went back to writing on the board, and Alice saw her window of opportunity. Nobody saw the dead Professor circle the flow chart with flourish because every live eye in the room (except for Lily`s) was on Alice`s hand as she reached forward and smashed a raw egg on the very top of Lily`s head.

There was a collective gasp. Lily`s jaw dropped in shock, and she tried to register what had been smacked down onto her head, when a slimy egg shell fell onto her notes.

She shuddered in digest, but there was nothing she could do but sit there and feel it running down her head. The worst part of her punishment wasn`t getting an egg sashed over her head, it was that she had to sit there for the whole class as raw egg dripped down on her. She couldn`t even wipe off the streak that was making its way down her cheek.

* * *

When History of Magic was finally over (much to Lily`s extreme relief), Mary and Alice led their friends out to the lake.

"What if we get eaten by the squid? Or kidnapped by a mermaid!?" Lily asked, flicking some egg shells off her uniform.

"Don`t be such a baby. Everyone knows the mermaids only eat you if you are covered in raw food." Melody said. Despite wearing a dress and cowboy boots, Melody was able to stay a safe distance away from Lily`s curses.

Remus, who was good friends with Hagrid, had gotten him to lend them one of the boats the first years use to get to Hogwarts. By the time Melody, Mattie, Lily, and Alice climbed into the small rowboat, a small crowd had gathered at the shoreline. From the boat, the girls could already see Mary was getting bombarded with questions.

"Mary remembered to bring the towels, right?" Mattie asked Alice, who`s eyes widened.

"I think so. We didn`t talk about…she probably remembered."

Lily peered over her shoulder at the shore. The boat was nearing the middle of the lake, so she could barely make out the figures.

"Uh oh," She said, "Why does it look like there are more people out there than there was at the Quidditch final last year?"

"Almost the entire school was there last year, including the teachers. It probably just looks like a lot from here. The Marauders and Marlene couldn`t tell that many people, right?"

They had reached the middle of the lake.

Melody removed her cowboy boots, hat, and gave the earrings to Alice. She slid off the tiny dress and stood there shivering in her bikini. Vanessa had been totally against Melody ruining her dress with the lake water, so she`d had to change into a bikini underneath the dress before her last class so she`d be ready.

Lily and Mattie were similarly wearing bathing suits under their uniforms, but only Lily was glad to not be wearing her ruined uniform any longer.

"Oh Merlin, why`d you listen to me…this was a stupid idea….I don`t wanna do this….I`d almost rather kiss James…please please please please don`t make us do this…Alice, come on, I know you have a soul, don`t make us do this….it`s sooooo cold…yes I know this was my idea." Mattie chattered rapidly, trying to negotiate her way out of this.

"Gryffindor up, Mats!" Melody said.

Mattie raised an eyebrow. "You want to do this?"

"Merlin no. But we kinda have to."

"Why?"

"Because challenges, like fear, are made to be overcome. So come on!" Before the other two could react, Melody grabbed an arm from both Mattie and Lily and jumped in, pulling her friends with her.

Lily shrieked. "Ahhh! So cold!"

"Race you to the shore!" Mattie called.

Melody yelled back, "It`s so on."

* * *

Lily, to everyone`s amazement but her own, was the first one to get to land. She`d never previously mentioned this fact to her wizarding friends, but she used to take swimming lessons with her sister when she was little. Melody was close behind, neck-to-neck with Mattie.

"Whoa, you`re like a fish!" Melody said when they were close enough to shore to stand.

Lily smiled cheekily. "I was on the swim team at my muggle school."

"Not to ruin this beautiful moment, but did anyone bring towels so that we don`t have to sprint up to the school in our bathing suits in the cold in front of the whole school?"

"Mary was supposed to bring them."

"She hasn`t got anything in her hands except her wand."

The three girls were quiet for a moment, staring into the crowd waiting for them on the land.

Finally, Mattie sighed. "I`ve got a plan."

"Brilliant, what is it?"

On the bank, someone shouted "What`s taking so long?"

"Alright, I`ll make them look away, and when I do, you two run as fast as you can to Mary and get her to accio us some towels or clothes or something. Don`t forget to come back and bring me a towel."

"What are you going to do?"

"You`ll see." Mattie said, ducking under the water and swimming stealthily over to where the water was lapping up against a higher elevated bit of ground. The people standing on the edge were a good foot above the water, even thought they were standing right at the edge of the bank. This of course was where the Marauders were watching from.

"Oi! Down here!" hissed Mattie quietly, startling the boys.

"Mattie? I thought you were over there with the other two. Why aren`t they coming in?"

"We haven`t got towels."

"So? You could just dry off your clothes with wands."

"Vanessa wouldn't let Mel swim in her dress so we all wore bikinis. Stop laughing! This is siri-no, not you, Black. Come on guys, you`ve gotta help us! Half the teachers are out here! I don`t want creepy old teachers like Slughorn seeing me like this!"

The four guys were knocking into each other in laughter. Remus had lost his glasses, and Peter and Sirius were on the ground, trying to use each other to push themselves up.

"Look, I`ll help you play the perfect prank on the teacher of your choosing, just please listen to me!"

At that offer, the Marauders pulled themselves together. She didn`t offer this kind of thing often.

"What do you need us to do?"

* * *

"You sure it likes chicken?" Mattie whispered as she watched from the water as the guys chucked roast chicken they`d accioed from the kitchen into the lake.

"Trust us, we`ve done this loads of times. Just get outta here before it comes up!"

Mattie paddled as quickly and stealthily back to the two girls as she could. "Alice just got the boat in. Can we get out now? It`s freezing!"

Mattie watched the floating chickens. Where was a monster when you needed it?

"Mats? I`m just gonna get out and take the jeers."

"No! Hold on, I`ve got this."

"Got wha-?"

Lily was cut off by shreaks and a giant splash.

"LOOK OUT! THE GIANT SQUID IS ATTACKING!" Mattie screamed at the top of her lungs.

Everyone`s eyes predictably turned to the squid, and the three waterlogged girls dashed onto land.

"Summon the towels!" Mattie whispered furiously to Mary.

By the time people started looking to see where the girls had gone, they were happily shivering from underneath the towels.

"That was absolutely terrific." Melody said, slapping her best friend on the back. "Have I mentioned lately how much of a total genius you-wait, what`s that?"

In the mist of the excitement, the girls hadn`t notice a person slip and fall off the slippery bank and into the water right by the squid. People were trying to grab the person, but whoever it was kept being swept farther towards the giant squid by the waves and current the splashing squid was making. Several people were trying to go in after the person, but the teachers were holding them back.

"We`ve got to help them!" Lily said frantically. She, Melody, and Mattie started to charge back into the water. Alice pushed the boat out into the lake again, and climbed in.

"No," Mary said, holding the three shivering girls back. "Let the teachers handle this! I`m sure they`ll be able to…"

Lily broke free. "By the time they come up with something, the student out there will have drowned!" She threw down her towel and jumped into the water. Behind her, Mary was able to restrain the other two from going after Lily.

The freezing water felt like hard ice when it hit Lily`s skin, but she ignored the pain and swam towards the flailing figure in the water. The waves were strong, but Lily was stronger. She hadn`t been a three time school swimming champion for nothing.

When she was ten feet from the student, a tentacle knocked Lily beneath the water. Shocked, she gasped, which was a huge mistake. Water flooded in her lungs, and when she broke above the waves again, she was dizzy and coughing. Her lungs ached for oxygen, and the little she was able to suck in between strokes was barely enough to keep her going.

Finally, Lily reached the person, who was frantically trying to stay afloat. She couldn`t make out who it was, because she had to squint to keep the disgusting lake water out of her eyes. Lily grabbed the person by their waist and pulled them away from the squid and towards Alice in the boat.

It was harder to swim for two people. Lily couldn`t tell if the other person was conscious, because they`d stopped flailing and were now just allowing her to pull them like a dead weight to the boat. The person was much larger than Lily, and from the abs she could feel through the school uniform, she could tell it was a boy.

Eventually, Lily`s fingers brushed the rough wood of the rowboat. Alice helped lift Lily and the boy out of the water. Both of them were exhausted, but still breathing.

"Merlin, that was incredible!" Alice said, rowing the boat back to land.

Lily looked over at the boy to see if he was alright. There was a green tint on his skin and uniform from the algae in the lake, and he must have lost his shoes in the lake somewhere, but otherwise he seemed fine. He brushed back his thick black hair and blinked.

"Evans?" He managed to sputter.

"Potter? You fell into the lake? I thought you were supposed to be a coordinated Quidditch player."

He spat out some pond water. "I didn`t fall! Moony pushed me a bit and I slipped, there`s a difference!."

"Oh, you`re just mad because you had to be saved by a girl."

"I was doing fine out there! You didn`t need to swoop in and complicate things."

"Excuse me? You were drowning when I got to you! Do you even know how to swim?"

"Yeah, I do as a matter of fact. I just wasn`t planning on swimming today, so I was taken by surprise."

"It`s a good thing I was planning on it then."

"Oh, I can see that from your clothes, or rather, lack of."

Lily suddenly realized she was covered only by her skimpy bikini and lake slime. Self-consciously, Lily reached over and snatched Mattie`s cloak she`d left in the boat and covered herself. "Do you really have to be such a prat all the time, even when I save your life?"

James rolled his eyes. "Oh, like you`re such a martyr. Didn`t you bite my head off yesterday when I saved you?"

"You weren`t saving me! You got trapped too!"

"But I got us out of there, which is much more than-"

"Will you two please shut up?!" Alice piped in.

The pair glared angrily at each other.

"Not to be the counselor here, but you should both just say thank you for getting saved and just get over it."

Lily couldn`t believe she`d almost backed out of the bet for _Potter_. Emotions, Lily decided, were insanely stupid. It was a good thing she had a brain to override the dumb feelings.

"Thank you for getting us out of those tunnels, Potter, but I`d like to add that you are an ungrateful prat who needs to realize the world does not revolve around your oversized head."

James spat out more lake water. "I appreciate you dragging me to the boat and all, but next time if it`s too much of a bother for your pretentious drama queen self to handle, you might as well not bother."

"I`d rather have another raw egg in my hair than be stuck in this boat with you right now, believe me."

"Oh, I`m tempted to jump back in and swim into the giant squid`s mouth as long just to get away from you, Princess."

Alice sighed, quietly banning her head against the side of the boat in frustration.


	9. A New Beginning (The End)

A New Beginning

(The End)

Contrary to popular belief, teachers (and headmasters) do notice if the entire school goes out on the grounds to watch three girls swim in a freezing lake and summoning a giant squid. In fact, said three girls and their six conspirators get in lots of trouble if this happens, and especially if a student is almost attacked by the squid.

The girls, conspirators, and student in question had been hauled into the headmaster`s study as soon as the rowboat carrying a conspirator, one of the girls, and the student was pulled ashore.

"Would anyone care to enlighten me on why exactly three reasonable girls would want to jump into a frigid lake and summon the giant squid?" Professor Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling in amusement.

Melody spoke up, shivering under the towel that barely covered her sopping wet bathing suit. "Well, you see professor, there was a bet."

Mattie raised her eyebrows in shock, not expecting her friend to give it away so easily. Melody didn`t look away from Dumbledore as she continued. "I told Mary that if Gryffindor won the match last Saturday, then I would jump in the lake. Mattie and Lil got in on the bet too, and obviously we lost."

"Does this have anything to do with that ensemble you were sporting earlier?"

"Yes sir. That was part of the bet too."

Dumbledore nodded and turned to look at the Marauders over the rims of his half-moon spectacles. "I see. Who summoned the giant squid?"

"It was me, professor. I was trying to motivate them to swim faster, and it got out of control. I was trying to fend it off when I fell in." James said. Sirius had a date with Brenda Swan that he`d be late for if he ended up in detention, so it was his job as a best friend to take the fall for it.

"Do you understand the seriousness of what you have done, Mr. Potter? Students could have been severely injured if the teachers hadn't calmed the creature. You yourself would have been eaten had Miss Evans not been such an extraordinary swimmer."

Nobody made a serious Sirius joke at that grim topic.

"I understand, sir."

"I knew you would, James. Miss. Prewitt and McDonald and Mr. `s Black, Pettigrew, and Lupin, you are free to go if you have nothing more to add."

"What about us, professor?" Mattie asked nervously.

"Please don`t be too harsh on Lily and Mattie, the whole bet thing wasn`t their idea." Melody

"Considering the circumstances, I think Mr. Potter and Miss Evans have received punishment enough for their actions. A giant squid is much more terrifying than any detention, and I`m sure they have learned their lessons." Lily let a smile creep across her face for the first time since stepping into the office, her nervousness melting, and James silently celebrated. "However," Dumbledore continued, turning to Melody, "You and Miss Bell will receive an additional detention each to the detentions you`ve received earlier today, and you both loose forty points from Gryffindor."

The girls sighed. Melody had already lost fifty points that morning for not wearing her uniform. The other Gryffindors were not going to be happy with them when they got out of detention.

* * *

That evening while Melody and Mattie scrubbed the dungeon floors, James was taking the long way back from Quidditch practice.

Since he was in a melancholy mood, he'd made the team run ten extra laps around the pitch. This, plus the fact that James had refused to cut practice short even though it started hailing half way through made it dangerous for James to return to the common room right away. He decided to take a detour to the owlery while the Gryffindor team cooled off.

James didn`t really have anyone to write to, so he he`d just been planning on sitting in there and procrastinating for a few minutes.

That is, until he heard the sobs.

It was defiantly a girl. James stopped outside the door to the owlery and closed his eyes, wondering who it was and whether or not he should go in. The mental debate only lasted a minute before his bold and protective Gryffindor instincts kicked in.

"Are you okay?" he asked gently, turning into the room and seeing a figure huddled in the shadows.

There was a sniff and a muffled reply James couldn't make out.

"What?"

"Go away, Potter." Snapped the figure.

"Evans?" James` voice toughened. "What are you doing up here?"

"Crying my eyes out, if you don`t mind. Now leave me alone."

James, who as a general rule always did the opposite of what Lily wanted, sat down a few feet away from her.

"Potter, I`m really not in the mood."

God, Evans was annoying.

When she finally looked up, eyes puffy and bloodshot, she asked snippily, "Why are you still here?"

"Because, Evans, I know how it feels to be unbearably sad. The only thing worse than being unbearably sad is being unbearably sad all alone. Merlin knows you`re far from my favorite person at Hogwarts, but you`re friends with my friends, which by extension makes us sort-of friends. And I wouldn`t wish unbearable sadness alone on any sort-of friend."

"Oh." She sniffed quietly.

They sat two feet apart, just looking at each other (with occasional tears on Lily`s part) for several minutes in silence.

"Do you want to talk about it?" James said finally.

"Not particularly."

"Okay."

"….."

"….."

"Car accident." Lily said unexpectedly.

"What?"

"My dad was in a car accident this morning."

"Is he alright?" James could already see the answer in her eyes.

"He died. Not instantly, but before they could pull him out of his car."

"Take a deep breath."

"Who are you to tell me to take a deep breath?! I can regulate my own breathing, thanks! Just leave me alone, you`re not helping things. What do you know about death anyway, did your fish die or something?!"

"I`ve never had a fish."

Lily smiled, her expression saying everything.

"My mother passed away over the summer."

Lily gasped. "I`m so sorry. I never knew."

"Nobody knows except the teachers, Sirius, Pete, Lupin, and now you."

"What happened?"

"To my mum? She died one of the only ways magic couldn`t save her. Her heart stopped. Healers said it was from old age."

"Merlin, I`m sorry."

"No, it`s fine, you really couldn`t have known."

Lily was quiet before asking, "Does it get better?"

"Sort of. I mean, when I`m at Hogwarts I don`t exactly forget, but it hurts a lot less. It`s a lot worse when I`m home in the big empty house, just me and the house elves. My dad works all the time and is always away. I think he just can`t stand to be home anymore because it reminds him too much of her."

Lily sat up a bit thoughtfully. "Potter?"

"Yeah?"

"I`m sorry I called you a prat with an oversized head earlier."

An actual Lily Evans apology? It was entirely unheard of.

"I`m sorry I said you were a pretentious drama queen." He relied.

Lily looked up at the boy across from her for what seemed like the very first time. "Can we start over?"

"I think it`s too late for that, Evans. We know each other too well."

"True."

Lily leaned against the wall next to James, their hands inches apart.

"Lily?"

"Hmm?"

"I`m sorry about your dad."

She took a deep breath. "You were right."

"About what?"

"It helps to not be alone." She gazed over at him. "The weight of it isn`t crushing me anymore. Thank you." She whispered the last word.

The two of them sat in the owlery until the sun had gone down. Lily eventually fell asleep on James` shoulder, the letter about her dad crumpled on the ground.

James knew they couldn`t stay there all night, and that Filch would be making his rounds and find them eventually. He didn`t want to wake up Lily, though, and pull her out of whatever dream she was having back into the harsh world in which her father had died. He knew she`d eventually wake up by herself and remember, but at least for now she was at peace. When almost all the stars had come out, he picked up Lily, being careful not to wake her, and draping his invisibility cloak over them, carried her back to the common room.

* * *

Lily woke up early the next morning on a couch by the fire.

For a few seconds she was disoriented, and then the night before hit her like a Hippogriff. Her dad. Car accident. Owlery. James. She must have fallen asleep up there.

She quickly climbed up to her dorm and slid into bed. Luckily, none of her roommates were awake yet, so nobody saw her come in.

As she lay staring at the ceiling, the only human awake at Hogwarts, thought of all that had happened in the past week.

Melody had been right. Things had certainly gotten interesting in the wake of the bet.

Across the room, Mary stirred. Soon the school would be awake, and Lily couldn`t wait to see what the new day would bring.

In the mist of the misery and sadness, Lily couldn`t help but feel like she was a new person. A new day, a new Lily.

James had been right when he said it was too late to start over. Somehow though, Lily had achieved what she wanted when she asked that question. It was a new beginning for the two of them; she could feel it in the jittery sunlight of the dawn. Maybe she hadn`t changed that much, but she sure felt different.

She didn`t think about how she`d have to tell her roommates about her dad when they awoke, or how depressing the funeral was going to be, especially with Tuney not talking to her.

Instead, Lily Evans thought of the good things still to come. She might not be fine now, or the next day, but it would get better. James said it would.

And deep down, though she would never admit it to him in a million years, she believed that arrogant toerag.

TO BE CONTINUED...

**A/N: Thanks everyone, I hope you enjoyed The Cliched Challenge!**** If you liked this, an upcoming sequel to this story** will be published in September, so keep an eye out for that. In the mean time, I`d recommend checking out Heartless Affections, set before this in fourth year, about another bet under very different circumstances. 


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